Got it tough
by lotchness
Summary: Set post-season 2 finale. Sam still has visions. Dean is still going to hell. Life had always been tough, but they're having trouble rolling with this one.


Hello guys, So here's another offering from the archives. Set sometime after season 2 finale.

Author's note below.

Enjoy!

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**_Got it tough_**

"Dean…" Sam mumbled, staring _through_ his brother.

Dean gripped Sam's arms and immediately buckled under his brother's limp weight. He hurriedly readjusted and wrapped his arms around Sam's waist instead.

"Sam, what?" He exclaimed, bewildered.

Sam's eyes rolled sideways, unfocused.

"Dean…" the whisper spoke of pain. And Dean couldn't take it in.

"Hey Sammy, com'on look at me…here, that's it Sam" He slowly lowered Sam to the ground, his arms trembling with the weight. He kneeled before him, both his arms holding Sam's shoulders tightly to keep him upright.

Sam drooped more, struggling against Dean's rough support to get nearer. Dean sensing the need let him sag into his chest.

"Sammy… what's wrong? Talk to me. Hey. Hey!"

Sam turned his face, his cheek pressed against the place a little lower than Dean's collarbone.

Dean's heart started to hammer away wildly with panic. He abruptly started to probe Sam's body in search of injuries. He felt up his forehead and felt no fever, no injuries… not even a scratch.

"Dean…" the repeated calls of pain and desperation bore into Dean's psyche and hurt him, reminiscent of the time he'd held Sam in an eerily same way when he'd died.

The memory rerun did not sit well with Dean's stomach and he had to press a fist into his mouth to stop the rush he felt inside of him. He pressed down the nausea and started to _think_ a way out instead of suffering painful flashbacks. Vision?

He shook the cobwebs of panic away and kicked himself, ofcourse a vision. Only a vision could shake up the younger hunter so.

He took Sam's chin and tilted it up gently.

"Sammy, you're with me now? You had a vision?" Sam's glassy eyes looked at him. Looked at his moving lips, his eyes… yet not understanding.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, it's me. You with me now little brother?" Dean asked, relieved to see some sort of sense back in those hazel eyes.

"Yeah."

"Yeah what?" Dean asked, prolonging the conversation to keep his brother from slipping back to his vision.

"I'm with you." The voice was a little louder, not a whisper anymore, but still sounding weary and pained.

"Think you can sit up?"

Sam grunted and pushed himself straighter, so that now he was sitting on his own.

Dean licked his dry lips and saw Sam do the same.

"Water?"

Sam nodded slightly.

When Dean returned with a bottle half-filled with water, Sam was only a little less pale than he'd been before. And the eyes had a hint of moisture that did not help in making Dean feel any better.

Sam took the bottle with shaking hands and Dean reached out a hand to his head while he sipped at it. He brushed the sweat slicked hair from his forehead and felt up his temperature simultaneously in an instinctive but useless gesture.

Sam managed to sip only a little water before he felt his brother touch his forehead in a warm and loving gesture that dated back to when he was very small. His vision grew misty.

He blinked. The mist stayed.

He blinked again. And again. And again.

"Sam?"

The harsh voice cut through Sam's trance. He suddenly realized that his cheeks felt warm… and wet.

"Sam, what's wrong?"

Sam's first thought had been to wipe his cheeks dry and stop behaving like a child. But the scenes he'd seen with his eyes closed drove out all embarrassment and self-consciousness. His eyes filled up again.

"Damn it Sam! Talk to me!" Dean knelt closer to Sam, took Sam's chin in one hand and tapped his cheek lightly with the other.

"I'm okay. I'm with you." Sam finally croaked out, his throat closing in on his words, his breaths hitching.

"What did you see? What was the vision about?" Dean's concerned face loomed close.

Sam swallowed and looked at those beseeching eyes.

"I…" he swallowed again.

"It's okay. You don't have to say anything right now. Let's get to the car first okay? We'll talk later." Dean backed off as he saw the shakiness return. He started to get up when Sam reached out and grabbed his wrist.

"_Dean_…"

Dean grimaced. That same pleading and painful refrain that he knew would haunt him for the rest of his life. Not that it meant too long. A little more than eleven months.

"What Sammy?"

Sam looked down, his hand still holding the confused older man tightly. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to do. He just… didn't know.

"Stay."

Dean immediately sat back down beside him, "Okay, that's fine. No hurry."

"No, Dean… I meant… with me… here, forever."

At first, Dean's mind credited the statement to disorientation that normally followed the visions and found it mildly amusing.

"Well I'd like to. The scenery's not too bad. But you know, we gotta get back to the motel, shower, eat, find our next gig… you know, the whole 'life' thing."

"I don't mean that Dean I- I…" Sam let go of Dean's hand and feeling flooded back to the numb appendage. He looked at the forest, the sun already set behind them. Anywhere but at his brother.

He couldn't form the words. He'd seen death. In a cold and bloody way. No other vision had ever affected him like that before. He shuddered at the images that unconsciously snuck back to his mind.

_A desert. Sparse bushes and grass breaking the monotonous space. The diffused light of dusk made the dark Impala visible. _

_Cold metal. Ivory in colour. Hopelessness. The colours shifted and the scene shook like an old film caught on a bad camera._

_A fire. Fire lighting up a pyre. The smoke going up into the coppery sky. The vision shifted down. At the ivory-handled pistol clasped by a large hand, long fingers. _

_A crushing feeling along with the cold of the metal returned. The world wavered and now the ground was a lot closer… rocking to and fro on the knees and the balls of the feet. _

_A low grumble, that continued till it was a high pitched moan. The sound of a mortally wounded animal. The sound twisting Sam's gut, making him ache like he'd never ached before._

_At this point, Sam had resurfaced from his vision a little, leaving him clutching his head, begging it to stop, to end. He didn't know how the vision was going to end but he knew he didn't want to see it. Curled up in pain, he begged. But it did not yield any result. He was viciously pulled back to the same heartbreaking place._

_The smoke stung and tears rolled down. An unrecognisable voice spoke. So softly that only the breeze heard it, which carelessly tossed it around and the words got lost._

"_I can't do this…"_

_A sharp intake of breath and a shaky exhale, bordering on sob._

"_I'm sorry… I can't…"_

_The smoke just stung more, more tears rolled down and the breeze continued to blow, not caring._

_The fire was dying down. The smoke now looking like clouds against the inky sky. Night had fallen._

"_Dean…" the broken voice, that Sam now recognised, uttered the single beloved syllable. Seeing the end of the life that it represented lay in the middle of the desert as glowing embers, soon to turn into ashes._

"_Dean…" the safety was turned off with an ominous click and Sam awoke to the world with a burst of pain and splattered blood._

_The blinding pain working with gravity to bring him down. But desperation drove him to get up on his knees, on his feet. And then put each leg in front of the other in search of his anchor. _

A hand fell on his left shoulder and he turned to that source of comfort.

"What. Did. You. See?"

The voice was now hard, demanding.

Sam shook his head.

"You have to promise me something."

"What? Promise what?" the hand was removed from his shoulder in confusion.

"Promise me that you won't go. That you won't just leave. That you will give me the chance to save you."

"Sam…" Dean sighed heavily, the name drawn out with it. "It's okay. This is how it ends for me. Remember what I told you, that I'd save you, if it's the last thing I do? I meant it."

"No, no. this is not it. Hell, I'm not saying that I'll never let you go. I know neither of us are going to live to be old men. I know we'll never have normal. I gave up that illusion long ago. I know we won't have much of a life. And we will bust this place _long_ before we reach the average life expectancy of a man. But it should be on our terms Dean, going down fighting… not, not surrendering to any filthy demon."

Sam said, his words cutting. His tone passionate, heated.

Dean blinked and turned his face away.

"I don't have a choice."

"There's always a choice, Dean. Isn't that what you kept trying to make me understand when I thought I was going to go to the dark side? Look what happened… I didn't become the demon's soldier, dad _crawled _out of hell… and the demon's dead." Sam panted, pausing for breath. "What more proof do you want? Face it, we both knew how less the possibility was of killing the demon and still making it out alive."

"_You _didn't make it out alive."

"Oh, I did. Jake killed me. A human, not the yellow eyed bastard. I was tired, I was stupid and sloppy and I paid for it. But the demon did not get us Dean."

"What's your point?" Dean asked, his fatigue growing with each word that Sam uttered.

"I'm not sure. I'm just saying… don't accept this, don't be okay with this. Because I'm not… I never will be. Dean… if you… if you go…" Sam's voice thickened.

"What, Sam?" Dean asked fearfully.

"I'll go too."

Dean's eyes hardened.

"Don't say that."

"I'm not just saying it Dean. It's going to happen. I know it for sure." Sam said, hating himself for saying it that way. It felt like he was hurting Dean deliberately for his own selfish purpose. So that he wouldn't hurt so much on his own.

Dean stared down at Sam hard, compelling the slouched figure to make eye contact.

"What the hell does that mean Sam?"

Sam maintained the eye contact reluctantly, his insides squirming. "Just what I said."

"The vision. That's what you saw, isn't it?"

Sam flinched as the voice grew angrier, the cold sort of anger that always scared the younger brother.

"Yes. You were gone. And I did what I had to do."

Both of them were perfectly still for an uncertain moment. Then Dean abruptly got up, anger in the way he straightened up, and then left Sam with cold, measured purposeful strides.

Ten minutes later, Sam reached the car to find Dean in the car. His hands on the wheel, eyes forward, shoulders tensing to start the car any second.

Sam quietly got in and both spent an entire minute bracing themselves for any other statements that could inflict more wounds.

"You're okay?" Dean asked gruffly, the concern still evident. Suddenly feeling guilty for having left him out there so that he could have his meltdown in private. And then trying to justify it because Sam was an infuriating little shit. It all felt ridiculous in head, God he needed a drink.

"Fine." Sam removed the hand with which he'd been unconsciously hugging his stomach with.

Dean nodded after a moment but made no motion to start the car. Knowing he had to say something.

"I'm sorry."

"Huh?" Sam's head jerked towards Dean.

"I break the deal… you're gone. Simple as that. I can't let it happen Sammy. Can't lose you twice. I'm just sorry, man… don't have anything else for you. I was screwed when mom died, Sam. Dad too. Both of us. Hunting was all we had left. You're different. You fought for something that dad repeatedly told you was impossible to get. You even got it. You have a better life ahead of you now that the demon is gone. My deal… it's just keeping you away from it longer than I wanted. You were wrong, you know… you will live to be an old man, have a safe, normal life. You'll have it 'cause you deserve it, because you fought for it and because that's exactly why I did what I did."

Dean took a shaky breath and looked at Sam, letting him see the truth in his eyes.

"Believe it or not Sam, I didn't do it because it hurt too much or it was the only thing I could think of. I did it to give you the chance at life you deserve, the life that you fought for, that I sacrificed my entire life for. I couldn't take that chance away from you when I could do something about it. I couldn't… so don't… don't you give up either. Don't let all that sacrifice and love go to waste, Sammy. Please."

Sam had bowed his head at some point of Dean's plea, feeling himself tear up from the inside.

Here was Dean _saying_ how much he'd sacrificed for Sam, and really, could he let that many years of whole hearted devotion go to waste because he was too weak to go on? But first, he couldn't sit back and watch hell claim his brother. It was like drowning in calm waters, when he knew how to swim. So crux of the thing was that he had to choose which one of them would be clutching the lifeless body of the other, unless God came in some sort of divine intervention, killed the crossroads demon and let Dean live. And since he had his faith brutally crushed a while back, he cancelled the second option and was back to thinking who'd be the last to go.

"Hey, take these." A blister pack of aspirin was thrown on his lap.

Sam cursed himself as he realised he was constantly giving himself away and pulled his hands away from his head.

"Thanks." He dry swallowed the pills, glad to have a remedy to remove the ache from one part of his body atleast.

"Let's head back…You look like shit." He gave a slight smirk, not quite managing the usual amount of wit in the banter.

Sam huffed, head turned away, "Whatever dude."

Whatever else he had as a retort was drowned out as Van Halen filled the car.

Dean started the car and exhaled in sudden relief. Sometimes with his brother by his side, his baby eating up the miles and his Dad's music…he almost felt invincible. Almost.

_I get up, and nothing gets me down.  
You got it tough._

_I've seen the toughest around.  
And I know, baby, just how you feel.  
You've got to roll with the punches to get to what's real_

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A/N I started out just posting my old writings because seeing them lying in my old home PC, which is ridiculously outdated and obsolete, made me feel kinda sad. I miss the old me who would spend hours writing fanfiction because she wanted to and enjoyed it.

So uh, here's a post Dean's deal fic, it's not exactly canon compliant because I wrote it before the 3rd season aired. Hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, please leave a review... I would let out a long screechy annoying squeal in the privacy of my room and then send you a very dignified reply. I promise :)


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